Want to learn Web Development but can't figure out where to start ?

So you saw some friend or any other guy making these awesome websites and web applications and wanted to learn how to make that awesome stuff? You decide to become a Web Developer and just can't figure out where to start? First of all congratulations, you made a great choice.

Maybe you Googled the same and got lots of resources which probably baffled you on how to get started, which resources to trust and where to begin your journey. Well, that is totally fine. Google can be your best friend or your worst enemy, depending on how you use it.

Choose your path and domain first of all

Okay, so you might be saying alright, I picked my domain to be Web Development but still, it alone has quite many things which you can pick up on your journey to become the kind of Web Developer you want to be. At the end, you should be clear about what type of developer you want to become.

Whatever your goal, it’s important to understand why you are doing this. This understanding will help you be more productive with your learning time. It will also help encourage you through those times when you feel like giving up.

Frontend - this is what the end user see’s and interacts with on the page. It's all the design, fancy effects, layout, and imagery that creates the user experience. Generally, front-end developers will be visual creatives with excellent design skills and a passion for accessibility and user experience. Technologies often associated with front-end web development are HTML, CSS, jQuery, and JavaScript.

Backend - this is the part that typically processes, stores, and manipulates data. It’s how the website or application works. Back-end developers are generally good problem solvers, logical thinkers who are interested in the functionality of a website or application. Back-end development is usually associated with server-side languages such as PHP, Python, and Ruby. It also involves dealing with databases to manipulate data associated with the website and often one of these server-side languages often connects with the suitable database and processes the data on the web application based on user requirement.

Either way, wherever your interest lies, I still think that the best place to start is by learning some basic HTML and CSS. After all, it doesn’t matter what area of development that you ultimately want to work in, you still need to be able to display it on a webpage in some kind of mildly presentable form. 

So the first step is to learn HTML and CSS to some intermediate level at least. To get started with HTML and CSS, some of the best places are freeCodeCamp and Codeacademy. This will give you a feel about these technologies and completing any one of these should ensure you obtain that bare minimum level.

Also, due to their interactive learning environments, they will also get you started writing code straight away, rather than having to figure out how to setup a local development environment first. Nothing will build up your confidence more than writing some code and passing some tests straight away.

Once you have done that much, congratulations you have started your journey to become a Web Developer!

But remember just getting started won't help in the long run. You need to practice and learn more over time. Remember, Consistency is the key here. Maybe code just for an hour a day but do it daily as it will make sure the concepts that you learn every day will stick to your brain.

I personally recommend this free Udemy Course, which will help you get started and you will actually build something which will give you a lot of confidence and motivation. Udemy is great, but initially, when you are not very sure about what you need to learn, it is not advisable to buy loads of courses and waste your money when you don't know what you want to learn. Personally, I think that resources such as freeCodeCamp are making education for the masses completely free. And seriously, if you apply yourself correctly, you really don’t need to spend anything.

You don't have to become an HTML and CSS expert by any means before you can start building things off

One thing I want to stress before signing off on this: you don’t in any way need to be a HTML and CSS expert before you can start building things, or moving on to learning a server-side language. You don’t have to spend months and months doing tutorial after tutorial. 

So the crux of this blog post was to help you get started with Web Development and HTML and CSS are the bare minimum that you need to learn in order to get yourself started with Web Development and also I told you some of the resources which can help you getting started.

In the next post, I will be telling you guys on what to do after this if you want to be a front-end developer or a backend developer or a full stack developer(the one who can handle both front-end and backend).

So stay connected, keep learning and keep developing awesome stuff. Get building!